The Wheeler Centre

Philosopher and author Damon Young has written about how closely bodies and minds relate to each other – and how crucial harmony between them is to our experience of humanity. He discusses these ideas (and more) on a walk with Quibell, a sociologist and writer – and his wife. Listen in to this open-air, intimate conversation about walking, thinking and being human.

Philosopher and author Damon Young has written about how closely bodies and minds relate to each other – and how crucial harmony between them is to our experience of humanity. He discusses these ideas (and more) on a walk with Quibell, a sociologist and writer – and his wife. Listen in to this open-air, intimate conversation about walking, thinking and being human.

Ruth Quibell, Damon Young and an audience of walkers in Princes Park — Photo: Jon Tjhia

This instalment of our 2017 series A Walk in the Park features two writers, Damon Young and Ruth Quibell, who know walking – and each other – well. They’re married.

'Our culture of exercise is stupid, it is mechanical, it is … concerned with tuning up our bodily engines – and not with having a richer intellectual or ethical life.'

Damon Young

Young, a philosopher and writer of numerous books and genres, is the author of How to Think About Exercise, part of The School of Life’s series of books. In the book, he explores how closely bodies and minds relate to each other – and how crucial harmony between them is to our experience of humanity.

Ahead of a relocation to Tasmania (since completed), Young discusses these ideas (and more) on a walk with Quibell, a sociologist and writer who has described walking as her ‘more than a creative practice or physiological tuneup … walking has been my existential remedy’. Listen for an open-air, intimate conversation about walking, thinking and being human.

Photo: Jon Tjhia

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CW: This discussion includes topics that some listeners may find confronting. In this conversation, hosted by Age journalist Nicole Precel, we hear from Katrina Marson, Rena Ou Yang and Greg Barns about The Invisible Crime: Are We Failing Victims of Sexual Violence? – an award-winning 2019 multimedia feature documentary that discusses the fundamental principles that underpin our criminal law. How does the concept of consent work, and how are social attitudes towards it changing? How are sexual-assault victims disadvantaged by the onus of proof?

CW: This discussion includes topics that some listeners may find confronting. In this conversation, hosted by Age journalist Nicole Precel, we hear from Katrina Marson, Rena Ou Yang and Greg Barns about The Invisible Crime: Are We Failing Victims of Sexual Violence? – an award-winning 2019 multimedia feature documentary that discusses the fundamental principles that underpin our criminal law. How does the concept of consent work, and how are social attitudes towards it changing? How are sexual-assault victims disadvantaged by the onus of proof?

This discussion includes topics that some listeners may find confronting.

Left to right: Nicole Precel, Katrina Marson, Rena Ou Yang and Greg Barns at the Wheeler Centre.

The Invisible Crime: Are We Failing Victims of Sexual Violence? is an award-winning multimedia feature documentary made in 2019 by a team of investigative and data journalists from the Age and Sydney Morning Herald. The documentary explores why sexual assault is under-reported and examines the myriad barriers to successful prosecutions against assailants. It provides data-driven context on how and why the legal system so often fails to deliver justice to victims.

In this conversation, hosted by Age journalist Nicole Precel, we pick up where the documentary left off, discussing the fundamental principles that underpin our criminal law. How are sexual-assault victims disadvantaged by the onus of proof?

We also take a hard look at the concept of consent and examined how social attitudes towards it are changing. How do legal definitions of consent vary between states and territories – and how can we get better at teaching, and defining, consent in our everyday lives?

Presented in partnership with AIDC and the Age, with special support from Google News Initiative.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

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Hear Christiana Figueres and Ross Garnaut – two distinguished heavyweights in the realm of climate economics – in conversation, as they discuss reasons for hope and roadmaps for change, with host Andrew Wear.

Hear Christiana Figueres and Ross Garnaut – two distinguished heavyweights in the realm of climate economics – in conversation, as they discuss reasons for hope and roadmaps for change, with host Andrew Wear.

Christiana Figueres and Ross Garnaut at the Wheeler Centre

Christiana Figueres, the architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement, sees the 2020s as a critical moment of opportunity – the ‘golden decade’ – in the future of our species and our planet.

Earlier this year, the former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change said: ‘If we do the right thing this decade, we can continue to design the future but if we don’t, we are really condemned to a world of increasing destruction, conflict and pain ... It is a golden ten years in the history of humankind.’

In this episode, Figueres is joined by distinguished Australian climate economist Ross Garnaut. With his new book, Superpower, about energy economics in Australia, Garnaut brings a message of optimism, opportunity and urgency, too. ‘We have unparalleled renewable energy resources,’ he has written. ‘We also have the necessary scientific skills.’

After the chaos and failure of the Copenhagen talks in 2009, Figueres spearheaded a historic agreement of 196 nations at Paris – an achievement few believed was possible. Garnaut has been a household name in Australia since his prescient report on the economics of climate change to the Commonwealth Parliament in 2008.

Hear these two peerless heavyweights in conversation as they discuss reasons for hope and roadmaps for change, with host Andrew Wear.

Looking for an Auslan-interpreted version? Check out the video.

A full transcript of the event is also available.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For Asia TOPA 2020, theatre director Caroline Guiela Nguyen presented SAIGON – a moving family saga tracing the paths of 11 characters across history and space. In this podcast, her translator, Nguyen Duc Duy, joins Australian writer Benjamin Law for a conversation about language, theatre and comedy, and this incredible play that places the art of translation at centre stage. They also explore the intergenerational, intercultural dimensions of their work – treasured by audiences, but largely missing from international stages. Hosted by Beverley Wang.